FrazzledDad

Monday, March 02, 2015

It’s another new chapter for me today: I’m joining Pillar Technology as an Executive Consultant!

I’ve known folks at Pillar for years in many different roles. They were instrumental in helping us sponsor CodeMash, and they’re deeply involved in the Heartland region’s active developer community. When we were struggling during the first CodeMash and knew we were tight on budget, Bob Myers, Pillar’s CEO, personally wrote me an extra check for $2,000 just in case we needed it. I was happy to be able to return it to him, but wow, what a great gesture!

I’ve talked with Pillar several times over the years about coming on board, and I always respected their team, but things weren’t ever quite right for one reason or another. Pillar’s Matt Van Vleet’s probably bought me as many breakfasts as he has key clients…

When I came back on the job market in December Pillar’s Don Abney immediately reached out to me and I had a great chat with him. I was extremely impressed with the extreme focus Pillar’s showing now, and I was very intrigued by the serious change they’re making in the organizations they’re working with.

Today I’m onboarding over at Pillar’s Forge in Columbus, and tonight I’m driving up to Detroit where I’ll start at a huge enterprise helping some of their teams build up their testing and delivery competencies. And automation. Go figure. I’m excited because I get to roll up my sleeves and do work, as well as help coach others along—which always ends up transforming me as much as those others.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

I’ve lost track of the number of times new testers have asked me some variant of “I’m new to testing. What automation tool should I start learning?”

I really appreciate their excitement about automation—especially since I’ve made automation my wheelhouse—but it’s not the thing new testers should focus on!

Testing’s a craft with a whole lot of tools, most of which are between one’s ears. You need to focus on developing your skills as a craftsperson, not just jumping on the automation bandwagon. (Please, do join me on board, though. It’s a great wagon to use for parts of your testing ride!)

As a newcomer, there are a tremendous number of things you can use to build up your testing skills. In no particular order, here’s a few things I’ve pointed people to over the various years.

Michael Bolton (@MichaelBolton) is a great thinker and writer in the testing space. He’s strong coffee and very opinionated, but I’ve gotten a lot out of reading his material. Much of Michael’s writing is at DevelopSense.

James Bach (@JamesMarcusBach) I’m really not a fan of James’s personality, but he’s done a lot of great thinking about what testing’s really about. Read with an open and skeptical, questioning mind. His deck on test cases is a great read.

Other people who I’m not taking enough time to describe their awesomeness, but simply list. All are easily discoverable on Twitter, Google, etc.

General testing folks

Matt Heusser

Michael Larsen

Alan Page

Trish Khoo

Paul Carvalho

James Lyndsay

Automation geeks (who are also great testers, btw)

Adam Goucher

Richard Bradshaw

Dave Haeffner

Please keep in mind: these folks are a starting point! Many are folks I know personally and respect, and they’re pals. Expand beyond this list!

Books:
There are plenty of great books to read; these are a few titles that really stick out:

Beautiful Testing

ExploreIt!

Agile Testing and More Agile Testing

The Art of Agile Development

The Art of Unit Testing in .NET

Specification By Example

A Practitioner’s Guide to Software Test Design

ATDD by Example

Lessons Learned in Software Testing

Experiences Of Test Automation

Community:
Find testing groups near you, or start one! Look to some of the various online testing communities. Weekend Testers is a great start!

Conferences:
Some conferences are great, so are a waste of time and money. But I’m slightly opinionated…

CAST

EuroStar

STP Conference

Branch out to good developer conferences where there’s a welcoming, encouraging atmosphere. I’m biased, having been on the Board of Directors, but CodeMash is one of the best conferences you could hit for cross-polinating.

Other:

Elisabeth Hendrickson’s blog Test Obsessed. She’s stopped posting since moving out of the consulting space; however, her writing is gold. Just. Plain. Gold.

Don’t Stop Here

Testing is about curiosity. It’s about sharing information with your team, organization, and customers. It’s not about “assuring” quality—you as a tester simply can’t do that. You can be part of a team that delivers great quality.

Open a command prompt and navigate to your VMWare install directory. On my system it’s:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation

Run the following command, where “” is the folder containing your VM’s disk—likely the same folder you found the logfile in above.

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -R

Start your VM back up. Once it’s back up and stable, check the latest logfile and search for the same “repair” error. If “repair” isn’t found, search for the same file opening entry just before you ran the utility:

Thursday, February 05, 2015

I’m really pleased to be returning to the KalamazooX Conference as a speaker. KalX is my second favorite conference in the world, right behind CodeMash. KalX is something very, very special because it focuses on the human side of things: inspiration, motivation, self-improvement, self-fulfillment.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Update: Wow, StackEdit did a horrible job of posting this! I had to fix several format issues including the book's price, which is is $12, not $122.

In case you missed it, I’m writing The Leadership Journey on LeanPub. The book’s meant to help individuals become great team leaders.

Pricing for the book is pretty attractive: Minimum price is FREE and recommended price is $9.49. When I release the price will change to minimum of $5 and recommended around $12.

The book’s currently at 67 pages and around 13,600 words. I hesitate to put a figure on it, but I’d estimate I’m around 50% - 70% done. Mind maps lay out the sections and their rough status, so you’ll have an idea where the book is going.

The latest major update is getting started on dealing with Impostor Syndrome. Self-confidence is a critical part of leadership, and I want readers to have some concrete actions to deal with self-doubt which can turn out to be quite destructive.

If you’ve signed up and are getting the updates, I’d love to hear from you.

If you’re not currently reading it, but are interested, go grab it! Please do let me know what you think of it, either on the LeanPub discussion group for the book, or via e-mail: Jim@GuidepostSystems.com.

About Me

I'm the owner/principal of Guidepost Systems. I help lots of great folks figure out what works and what doesn't in the world of delivering quality software -- something I'm very passionate about. I'm also a Father trying to remain sane while trying to build great software, herd my kids around, fix school lunches and handle the yardwork. (And roast great coffee!)